You know that, according to quantum theory, if two particles collide with enough energy you can, in principle, with an infinitesimal probability, produce two grand pianos.

My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. Izzy, she would say, did you ask a good question today? That difference - asking good questions - made me become a scientist.

If you decide you don't have to get A's, you can learn an enormous amount in college.

We must also teach science not as the bare body of fact, but more as human endeavor in its historic context-in the context of the effects of scientific thought on every kind of thought. We must teach it as an intellectual pursuit rather than as a body of tricks.

You know that, according to quantum theory, if two particles collide with enough energy you can, in principle, with an infinitesimal probability, produce two grand pianos.

As yet, if a man has no feeling for art he is considered narrow-minded, but if he has no feeling for science this is considered quite normal. This is a fundamental weakness.

[Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.